Law Commons^™

No Trade Dress Protection For Anything Disclosed In A Patent: A Defense Of The Supreme Court's Per Se Restriction, Glen A. Weitzer

Marquette Intellectual Property Law Review

Conflicts between patent and trademark law arise when the owner of a patent seeks to protect the physical configuration disclosed in a patent. Patent law requires that information in a patent be dedicated to the public upon expiration of the patent; however, trademark law can be used upon expiration of the patent to continue to exclude certain aspects of the art disclosed in the patent. This note explores existing jurisprudence on the conflict between patent and trademark law and proposes a remedy to this conflict.